Timing is Everything
by fsugrad05
Summary: "Life is all about timing...the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable...attainable. Have the patience, wait it out. It's all about timing." -Stacey Charter
1. Chapter 1

Rory sat on the bus and watched the buildings go by the window, putting her in a trance as she thought about the last few days. She still could not believe that Logan had given her an ultimatum, how reversed the roles felt. Her mother's words ran through her head until it became a mantra. _One day, you'll meet someone and you'll just know that it's right. You won't want to hesitate._ Rory couldn't have said yes to Logan,not when everything was so up in the air. _You won't want to hesitate._ If she repeated it enough times, maybe she would start to believe it. Logan wasn't right for her because she hesitated. She thought back to the rocket that he had given her when he went to London and wondered how things could have gone so far downhill since then. He all but told her that he would wait for her and that what they had was true love. Rory could feel the thickness in her throat before she felt the moisture in her eyes and blinked furiously to stop the impending tears. The buzzing of her phone broke her out of her reverie as she looked down at the obtrusive object in her hand. She smiled when she saw that it was her mother and answered quickly.

"Mom, hi," she croaked out and then cleared her throat hoping her mother didn't hear it but knowing she did.

"What's wrong?"

Rory sighed and thought about what to tell her mom. She knew Lorelai was probably tired of hearing her lament about Logan, but she decided on honesty in the end.

"I was just thinking about Logan again, about the rocket. I can't understand how he could just end it after giving me a gift like that, with that kind of sentiment. He told me that he would wait for me..."

This time she heard Lorelai sigh and waited for the response she knew was coming.

"Honey, you got to stop doing this to yourself. You have this great opportunity to travel around the country, doing what you love. Take this time to discover yourself."

"Can you be anymore cliché, mom?"

"I could if I tried, but I'm being serious here. It may sound cheesy but you are suddenly single after three years and this is a great time to reflect on your life. You are going through a lot of changes right now and you should take this opportunity to heal."

Rory knew her mother was right, but couldn't pass up the chance to make fun of her.

"How is the career change to motivational speaker going?"

She heard her mother laugh and she laughed with her. It felt good to be genuinely happy in that moment and Rory vowed to have more of these moments.

"Mock all you want, but you know I'm right, kid."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get back to you in a few weeks and let you know how it's going."

Over the next several months, Rory took her mother's advice to a fault. She researched every city she was to visit and explored anything that interested her during her free time. She threw herself into her work the majority of the time and earned praise from her boss as well the attention from other papers around the country. The longer Rory was on the road the better she started to feel. She even accepted a few dates along the way and while most of them were extremely awkward, it felt good to get back out there.

When the campaign took her to Philadelphia, Rory couldn't help but think of Jess and she wondered if he still lived there. It had been two years since she last saw him and traveling had allowed her to continue her avoidance of all things Jess. She hadn't spoken to him since they kissed at Truncheon and Rory winced at the memory. She hadn't initiated contact out of guilt but often wondered how he was doing. If she were honest with herself, she could admit that thoughts of Jess entered her mind regularly. If she wanted to face the whole truth, she could admit that thoughts of Jess were one of the reasons for her hesitation when it came to Logan's proposal.

Rory found herself making her way towards Truncheon the first opportunity she got. She just wanted to see if he was still there, she told herself. Just wanted to see how Jess was doing, that's all. As the building drew near, she could feel her heartbeat in her ears, could hear it. She shook her head and turned around, her mind changed. As she did this, she ran into someone and mumbled an apology without lifting her head.

"Rory?"

 _Shit._ She looked up and made eye contact with him, searching his eyes for any anger but they were bright, eager, happy.

"Rory, what are you doing here?"

The question could have been asked in anger, especially knowing who was asking it but she realized that it wasn't. She continued to stare, dumbfounded, at this man before her. Rory could barely recognize him and she realized that it was because he was genuinely happy. Jess displayed his crooked smile in earnest while she continued to stare at this open display of positive emotion.

"Have you gone mute?"

This shook her out of her daze and she finally smiled back at him, shaking her head with a laugh.

"No, I just didn't recognize you. You're happy."

She was rewarded with a rare laugh from the once angry, tortured Jess Mariano and searched his face for sarcasm, but found none.

"Yeah, I guess I am. It's weird, right? Don't tell anyone."

With that, he actually winked at her and then smirked. _Ah, there he is._ She smiled back at him.

"I won't ruin your reputation, Mariano."

Another laugh! Rory was starting to feel like she had entered an alternate universe, when she heard another voice calling his name.

"Jess, what are you doing out there, did you get my coffee?"

The voice was impatient, but kind and very feminine. Rory looked to the source and almost jumped, she could be looking in a mirror. The girl was a couple inches shorter than Rory, but had the same chocolate colored hair and delicate features. Her eyes were brown, Rory noted in victory, and then internally smacked herself for even having that thought. Rory wasn't paying attention to the conversation going on between the two of them until she heard her name. Jess was staring at her with an expectant look.

"I'm sorry?" Rory knew how she sounded, but she couldn't help it.

"I said, this is my girlfriend, Sarah."

Rory could actually feel her heart drop out of her chest. She felt stupid, believing that she was the cause of alternate universe Jess. She was angry at herself, allowing herself to think he would always be there for her when she was finally ready. It wasn't fair of her to blame him for moving on though, after all, hadn't she recently gotten out of a three year relationship herself? She took in their smiling faces and smiled back at them, putting the mask back on. Jess was too happy to even notice and Sarah didn't know her well enough to detect anything amiss.

"Hi, Sarah. It's so nice to meet you!" Rory winced at how fake she sounded but again, neither seemed to notice.

"I was just telling her how I know you, that we met in high school."

It was the first time in this bizarre interaction that Jess had even acknowledged their past and Rory's head snapped in his direction at the description. His eyes were pleading and she knew in that moment that the lovely Sarah knew nothing about her.

"Yes, we did meet in high school, when Jess-"

"When I was a little punk, right, Rory?"

There were those pleading eyes again, this was an interesting game they were playing and Rory just smiled and nodded. Sarah just laughed, grabbed her coffee from Jess and said, "Well, I'll let you two catch up." And she was gone before Rory could even say another word. She looked back to Jess with more questions in her eyes, but he was watching Sarah walk back into the store with a lopsided grin on his face.

After she was out of view, he turned back towards her and said, "You want to go grab a coffee?"

Rory nodded dumbly and followed him as he walked towards a coffee shop. Once they were inside and the smell of coffee hit her, she finally broke out of her daze and said, "What the hell Jess?"

He looked at her with a knowing look and motioned for her to go sit.

"Grab a table, we'll talk."

The conversation that followed wasn't what Rory expected, but she couldn't be angry at Jess for wanting to move forward with his life. He had met Sarah a few months ago and they dated casually for a couple of months before it became exclusive. They hadn't had the talk of girlfriends past yet so all Sarah knew of Rory was completely innocent.

"I really like her, Rory, and I can see this going somewhere. I want to see where it goes."

Rory plastered her fake smile back on her face and said, "I'm happy for you, Jess. I wish you nothing but the best."

The sentiment was genuine; she could never feel any ill will towards Jess and just wanted to see him happy. The end product of actually seeing him happy was still a bit bizarre. She had never seen him smile so frequently in such a short period of time. Jealous thoughts ran through Rory's head; she had never been able to make Jess smile like that. Rory decided it best not to mention that Sarah could pass as her twin, however weird she found it. Once the topic of Sarah was talked to death, it was inevitable that it would swing back around to _her_ love life.

"How's Logan?"

Rory searched his eyes to determine what Jess knew, but he seemed genuinely curious. Rory internally cursed Luke for his inability to talk about other people.

"I wouldn't know, I haven't spoken to him in almost a year, eight months to be exact." He looked at her, eyebrow raised with the unspoken question. "He proposed, I said I wasn't ready, he said it was all or nothing, I've got nothing."

Rory tried to leave all of the emotion out of it, but knew he could see through her now that he was away from his hazy Sarah cloud. The look he gave her made Rory want to be swallowed up by the earth and disappear from this moment forever. It was a mixture of pity and sadness with just a hint of hope. Rory shook that thought out of her head and reminded herself that he was happy with Sarah, he had moved on. "Rory, I'm sor-"

"It's ok. Please, don't apologize," she interrupted. "It took me a long time, but I realized we were never going to work. You were right, it seems, in the end. He wasn't right for me." She smiled sadly at him, realizing they were once again in two different places, but she didn't want to lose him completely. "Jess, I don't want another two years to go by between us. Do you think we could possibly be friends? We were once, before everything…"

She looked at him hopefully and smiled when she noticed his crooked grin smiling back at her.

"Yeah, we were friends once, weren't we?"

She may not have Jess in her life the way she had imagined, but he was still back in her life and Rory couldn't help but feel truly happy for the first time in eight months. She left Philadelphia the next day, armed with Jess' phone number, email address and a promise to stay in touch.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for all the positive feedback and I'm sorry this took so long! Hope you enjoy chapter 2!**

Jess was laying in his bed the night Rory left, wide awake, unable to sleep. He couldn't believe she had actually come back. Granted she only came to Philly because of work, but she had come to see him specifically. He laughed at the irony of the universe. He wasn't ready to give up what he had with Sarah for the unknown with Rory. It was too much of a risk; Rory was too much of a risk. Jess was able to recognize that the connection he felt with Sarah was nothing compared to what he had with Rory, but a connection like that came with consequences. Consequences Jess wasn't sure he would be able survive again.

Friends would be a good place for them. She was right, they were friends before anything else and he didn't want another two years to go between them either. Jess wasn't ready to let Rory go completely, even if he wasn't ready to let her back into his heart. He turned his thoughts to Sarah and what the future could hold for him. With a smile, he drifted off to sleep.

Two weeks later, Jess sat on his bed in his apartment scribbling in his notebook, more inspired than he had been in years. The sunlight shone through the lone window in his room so he didn't even bother to turn a light on. He couldn't get the words out fast enough and opened his laptop with a frustrated sigh. He loved the feeling of actually writing, but sometimes his fingers just didn't move fast enough.

After what felt like only a few minutes, Jess stretched his arms above his head and let out a huge sigh. He brought his arms down, rolled his neck to get the kinks out and noticed how dark his room had become. Instinctively, Jess brought his wrist to his line of sight and had to squint to read the time, the screen from his laptop provided minimal light. His eyes widened once he realized it was almost nine at night. He looked back to his computer to see the Word document contained fifty-five pages and his eyes widened even more at that. A laugh escaped his mouth and his thoughts automatically went to Matt and Chris, they would be pleased with his progress.

Jess got up from his bed and stretched again. He let out a contented sigh as his muscles started to loosen. He walked over to the door of his room surrounded by complete darkness so that he could flip the light switch on. His thoughts took him to Sarah, which prompted a search for his cell phone. His eyes barely adjusted to the sudden onslaught of light, Jess squinted as he looked around the room for the phone. Finally, he spotted the elusive object on his desk. Sarah and Rory had both called him hours ago but he made the decision to call Sarah back first, an attempt at setting priorities between the two women. Sarah answered his call after the first ring.

"Hey you."

The smile in her voice could be heard through the phone and Jess responded with his own greeting.

"Hey, I was in a zone, but now I'm hungry. Have you eaten yet?"

"I have, that's why I called you, but I couldn't wait on you anymore, just finished eating actually. I made extras if you want to come over and have some?" Jess smiled at this statement and told her that he was already on his way over.

After Jess knocked on Sarah's door a couple times, he was greeted with her smiling face. He gave her a smile back and a kiss in place of a hello.

"So, you got rid of your writer's block, I take it?" she asked with a smile as she headed into the kitchen to put some of the leftovers on a plate. He followed her and sat on one of the stools that sat under the breakfast bar at the parameter of the kitchen. He watched her as she placed the plate of food into the microwave and responded with a smirk.

"Yeah, I don't know what it was, but by the time I realized what time it was, I had typed fifty pages. And that's not even including what I wrote out before I started typing."

"So what you're telling me is that your second book should be out soon?" She laughed, with her hand on her hip and a sparkle in her eye.

With a start, Jess realized how alike she was to Rory. He could imagine Rory making a similar quip, striking the same pose, and it bothered him that he had never made the connection before. Was it just because he had reconnected with Rory or did it mean something more? He shook that thought from his mind and responded with a nod and a laugh of his own as Sarah walked back over to him on the opposite side of the counter. She handed him the plate and asked him if he wanted any coffee.

Jess almost stuttered at this as his mind was brought back to Rory once again. "No. Uh...just some water would be good." Jess shook his head again when Sarah turned around to grab a cup out of the cabinet. What was happening to him? These thoughts had never entered his mind before and now it was all he could do not to compare the two women.

He watched as Sarah filled the cup with water from the tap on the front of the fridge. She wore an old pair of jeans with a white tank top and black converse shoes. Jess could actually picture Rory in the same outfit and started to get frustrated with himself for making the comparisons. He shoveled the food in his mouth and ate as fast as he could, he needed to eat and get the hell out of here so that he could think. Then the thought occurred to him that Sarah had actually made this food, which was not something Rory would ever do. He looked over at Sarah who still stood on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and realized she was giving him a funny look. He swallowed what was in his mouth before he told her how good the food was.

"Plus, I haven't eaten anything today, so I guess I was just hungry."

She nodded at this, taking him for his word. "Well I am glad to feed you and glad you liked it, but maybe you can eat like a human." She laughed at this and he knew she was joking with him, but he realized how crazy he must have looked and vowed to have no more thoughts of Rory for the rest of the night.

After Jess was done eating, Sarah asked him if he wanted to watch a movie. He nodded and told her to pick one out. He walked his plate over to the sink to rinse it off while she went through her movie collection in the living room.

She called out to him from there, "The Breakfast Club or The Godfather? If we watch the Godfather, I'm going to want to watch all of them and it is too late to start that kind of marathon…although if we watch the Breakfast Club, it will make me want to watch all of John Hughes 80's movies and that's an even longer list…"

Jess stood frozen in the kitchen as she continued to ramble on about the movies until he couldn't take it anymore. He had to get out, there was no way he would enjoy the rest of the night after this Rory-esque ramble about movies no less, movies Rory would like, movies Rory would draw the same conclusions to regarding a viewing marathon. Jess finished rinsing off the plate and walked over to the living room to stop the rambling.

"You know, I think I've changed my mind. All I can think about tonight is what I wrote earlier and I want to read over it and see if I can organize it into some semblance of a book, or the start to one anyway."

"Oh, ok." She was upset, he could tell, but she would be even more upset if she knew what he was really thinking about. If he allowed her to think he was just distracted by what he wrote, it would be so much easier. Jess convinced himself that he was doing Sarah a favor, at least until he could sort out these thoughts himself.

"I'm sorry, I'm just really distracted and I know it will be a crappy night if I stay and just try to push those thoughts out of my mind."

There, that was honesty, almost. Sarah nodded at this, understanding, and gave Jess a goodbye kiss that let him know what he was missing out on. Feelings of guilt crept into his mind as she kissed him, her tongue begged for entrance into his mouth. Her fingers tangled into his hair and she pressed the length of her body against his. He relented, opening his mouth and deepening the kiss, all thoughts of Rory gone completely. It was as if Sarah had known Jess was distracted by something other than his writing and she was letting him know that if he was leaving her apartment tonight, he would be leaving with thoughts of nothing but her. Jess responded to her urgency with some of his own and he picked her up, slamming her back against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his midsection and moved her hands down from his hair to his neck and finally down his back, under his shirt as she scratched him with her fingernails. Jess let out a small moan at her touch and heard her laugh as she broke away from his kiss. He smiled back at her and moved to carry her to her bedroom.

Once Jess was home, he looked at his phone and decided to finally call Rory back. After it rang several times, he realized that she might actually be sleeping. He took the phone away from his ear to end the call, but then he heard a tiny, distant voice and smiled once he had digested what was said.

"You better have a damn good reason for waking me up at...2am!"

Jess pictured Rory pulling her phone away from her face to look at the time and he winced when he realized how late it really was.

"I'm sorry, I didn't even look at the time before I called. I was just calling you back. Go back to bed, I can call you tomorrow."

"Oh no, I'm up now, might as well talk. Although, I can't even remember why I called right now."

"Rory, really, go back to sleep. I know you well enough to know that as soon as you hang up, you can be asleep in less than 30 seconds."

She smiled at this, knowing he was right.

"Ok, talk tomorrow?"

"Talk tomorrow."

With that, Jess hung up his phone and turned back to his laptop, inspired to write some more. Before he knew it, the sun had risen through his window and he realized he had typed another fifty pages. His eyes were too tired to even read over any of it. He checked his phone and sent a text to Sarah, letting her know that he would most likely sleep the day away and asked her to call him later for dinner. He then texted Rory a similar message and advised he would call her later tonight. As soon as his head hit the pillow, Jess was asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks again for the reviews/follows! I realize there is not a lot of Jess/Rory interaction in this even though it is supposed to be a lit fic. This chapter is no different but it will come, I am just trying to be realistic with these two. Enjoy!**

Rory once again sat on the bus and gazed out the window as she contemplated how her life had turned out. It was almost Thanksgiving, which meant that she had been on this bus for nearly six months. She had to admit that she was bored with this job. When she first took it, she was so excited to actually have a job that she never really considered exactly what the job entailed. It was tedious work as the Senator made the same speeches in every city they traveled to. She thought about the debates that she was able to witness and realized that they were the highlight of her job. They were few and far between though, Rory thought with sadness. Rory realized they were not nearly enough to sustain her for much longer. She seriously started to doubt her career choice. How was she ever supposed to make it overseas if she could barely handle being on a bus across the United States for six measly months? That would be different though, Rory thought to herself. She would be covering different stories every day and she'd travel all over the world to do it.

Rory pulled out her notebook and started a list of what she would need to do to make that happen. The first line of her list included contacting all of the papers that had expressed interest in her. She needed to get a job at a real newspaper or even a news channel like CNN. That was how Christiane Amanpour started out after all; she was a lowly desk assistant when she first started at CNN. Rory added CNN to her list of places to contact as well as any other news affiliate that she could think of.

After Rory was satisfied with her extensive list, her thoughts moved on to Jess. Things were weird at first, she had to admit, but being just friends had always been a little weird for them. There was always an underlying current of electricity between the two of them. Regardless of how deep the denial ran with Jess, Rory knew that spark was still there. She could feel it every time they were on the phone; hell she could feel it even through the emails. In the beginning, she had to constantly remind herself that Jess didn't want her, he was with Sarah and that was how it would remain for the foreseeable future. Rory was resigned to the fact that she would only be in Jess's life as a friend, as hard as that had been to accept. She wanted to be happy for him; she really did, so it was with that thought in mind that Rory began living her own life of denial when it came to her feelings for Jess.

Rory's thoughts finally moved to her mother and the fact that she would be back in Stars Hollow for Thanksgiving in a mere three days. She could barely contain her excitement at the thought of another four Thanksgiving meals. She had been on the phone with her mother last night comparing their strategies for getting in shape for the big day. Rory had been eating four meals every day for the last week, however, Lorelai went the route of several small meals throughout the day. Lazy thoughts continued to stroll through Rory's head when her phone started ringing. She looked at the caller ID and smiled before she answered.

"Mom! I was just thinking about you and our big day coming up. I can't tell you how excited I am to be home for a few days, it's going to be so great. I hope you have all sorts of activities planned! Oh who am I kidding, of course you-"

"Rory!" Her mother interjected.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, I have something to tell you and I'm not exactly sure how you'll react because we haven't talked about this subject in such a long time."

"Now who's rambling? Just spit it out mom."

"Okay, Jess is coming to Thanksgiving with his new girlfriend, Sarah…"

"Oh that. Yeah, I know." Rory was met with silence with this acknowledgement and figured she better explain before her mother came to her own conclusions. "We've been talking for a couple months now, as friends. I went to see him when the campaign went to Philadelphia and I met Sarah briefly, but long enough to see how happy Jess is. We agreed to be friends, so that's what we are. Friends." Silence again. "Mom, I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure how you would react and I didn't want to make it a big deal, because it's not a big deal. We can be friends. We're going to be friends."

"See kid, when you don't tell me things like that, it kind of negates the fact that it isn't a big deal."

"Nice use of the word negate." Rory's attempt to change the subject failed, however, when she was met with silence once again. "I know…okay…so maybe it is a big deal, but I want to be happy for him. You should have seen him, well you will see him I guess in a few days. He is so happy mom, it is almost unnatural. So he obviously doesn't have any feelings for me anymore and I am going to be okay with that. We were friends before anything else and we can do that again."

"Do you really think that's such a good idea, hun?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, you guys have such a history and-"

"Mom, I'm sorry to cut you off but I have to go. We just got to the hotel and I need to go check in and get ready for tomorrow." Rory knew her mother wasn't done talking about this, but if she could just avoid the subject long enough so that her mother could see her with Jess, Rory knew that she would see it her way. They were friends and that's all they were going to be because Jess was happy and Rory wasn't going to be the one to ruin that for him.

"Yeah, okay. Call me when you can."

"The next three days are going to be super busy so I am not sure I will have time. Don't send out the search party if you don't hear from me until I'm home, okay?"

"Okay kid, I love you and I'll see you in 3 days!"

"Yes you will! Love you too, mom."

Rory watched the scenery as the bus continued to roll by, she hated lying to her mom but she knew that conversation would break her delicate house of cards that she had created around the subject of Jess and she wasn't ready for that.

As Rory expected, the next three days flew by and before she knew it, she found herself at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, ready to fly home. Rory made her way to security and cursed to herself at the amount of people in line. She knew traveling on the day before Thanksgiving would be a hassle, especially at such a busy airport, which is why she allowed herself a significant amount of extra time. Rory checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes and realized that she was getting dangerously close to a missed flight. She tapped her foot with impatience as the woman in front of her moved in slow motion. Rory let out an exasperated sigh as the woman slowly pulled her laptop out of her bag and placed it in its own container. After the woman placed her laptop bag and purse in another container, she finally moved to take her shoes off. Rory had done all of these steps before she had even made it to the stack of containers so that the transfer process was completed in an efficient manner. There was nothing Rory hated more than inefficiency.

After she made it through security, she quickly put her shoes and belt back on and took off running towards her gate. Too worried to miss her flight, Rory didn't care what she looked like, although she knew she must have looked ridiculous. With a satisfied sigh, she made it to the gate and boarded as the gate agent announced last call. As she made her way down the terminal, she readjusted herself after that absurd run as she knew a plane full of people were about to lay eyes on her. Rory found her seat, stowed her bags and sat with another sigh as the adrenaline left her body.

"Don't worry, you weren't the only one running late, I just sat down myself." Rory jumped at the sound of a male voice next to her and her hand instinctively went to her heart as she turned to look in the direction the voice had come from. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, just thought you could use some commiseration."

Rory tried not to widen her eyes as she saw the man who sat next to her. He was around her age and although he was sitting, she could tell that he was nearly six foot. He had unruly, curly, dark brown hair and the most beautiful green eyes she had ever seen. His skin was a soft brown and so smooth she wanted to reach out and touch it. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. Rory could not believe her luck, to be sat next to a man like that after what she had just gone through, she could only imagine what she looked like. She tried to smooth down her hair and attempted a smile towards this man who had been smiling at her for the past couple of minutes.

"I'm Josh by the way."

"Rory."

"Nice to meet you, Rory."

"You too, so did you have to run through the airport like a lunatic too?"

"Yes." He laughed and Rory noticed his teeth for the first time. They were vibrant and so straight she knew he had to have had braces at some point in his adolescence. "You aren't the only one sweating and panting for breath."

At this, Rory took a closer look and realized that he was right; he was glistening, which only made him look more attractive. She laughed at this, knowing there was no way her sweaty face looked anywhere near as good as his did. All of a sudden, Rory was nervous and self-conscious. She felt like a teenager again and mentally kicked herself for losing all confidence just because she was in the presence of an attractive man.

"So, is Hartford your final destination?" His voice brought her back to reality as she attempted to comprehend what he had just asked her.

"Yes. Well, no…I'll end up in Stars Hollow, it's about 30 minutes outside of Hartford. You?"

"Yup, my parents moved there a couple years ago and they finally convinced me to come home for Thanksgiving. This is the first time I have visited them, is there anything to do there?"

"I don't really know. I went to high school there and my grandparents live there, but it never really felt like home so I never explored the city." Rory surprised herself by that disclosure and by how quickly she became comfortable with Josh. She didn't want the conversation to die so she thought of another question to ask him. "So is Chicago home then?"

"For now it is, what about you?" He looked at her expectantly as he waited her for to

answer.

"I don't really have a home…not that I'm homeless, because I'm not! I'm a…uh journalist and I ride around on a bus with a bunch of other journalists following the Obama campaign. I write articles for an online magazine. What about you, what do you do?"

"I am in my last year of residency to become an ER doctor."

Rory was rendered speechless yet again. "Wow, that's…wow. But you're so young!"

He laughed at this. "Well, probably not as young as you think I am, I'm no Doogie Howser. But I am kind of a nerd, so I graduated undergrad by the time I was 20. Four years of medical school after that, I'm now in my third and final year of residency. Not that I'm bragging or anything."

Rory looked at him and he appeared genuinely uncomfortable talking about his accomplishments, but she could sense his pride as well.

"You should brag about that, that is amazing! My friend Paris is actually in Harvard medical school, but now I can tell people I know a real doctor!" She laughed and then realized what she just said. "Not that I know you or anything but-"

"Rory? I know what you meant." His pearly whites were on display again and Rory could actually feel her heart jump. The two went back and forth for the rest of the plane ride as they got to know each other. It wasn't until the flight attendant announced that everyone should prepare for landing, that Rory even realized how long they had talked. He looked at her shyly then and asked if she would like to go out sometime this weekend. Rory threw all caution to the wind and had said yes before she allowed herself time to think about the logistics of starting something with someone who lived in Chicago. They exchanged numbers and he promised he would call the next day to set something up once she knew what her plans were for the weekend. As Rory got off the plane, she couldn't help but keep a smile plastered on her face. She hadn't felt like this in such a long time, she couldn't even place the emotion. Luckily for her, her mother did that for her.

"Why do you look so giddy?"


End file.
